ramblings

We 16 GET Teachers (GET stands for Global English/Espanol Training) all teach two classes a day on 35 days of the voyage. During our free time we have the option of being quite busy with lectures and myriad activities on the ship. (( One of the biggest “problems” on the ship is deciding what to do next! Every room usually teems with activity. )) Somewhere during all that (usually at night when we’ve got several hours before classes) we plan lessons, with each teacher designing his or her own curriculum to fit the students and hopefully coordinate with the ports we’re visiting, etc. One basic philosophy allows the students to immediately use the English they’re learning.

GET Teachers and CCs (Communication Coordinators (translators)) room together, separated by gender, with usually 3 or 4 people per room. We’re on the 3rd floor of the ship, the lowest level for passengers, with only crew below us.

Right next to my room is a Water Tight Door. Every night it closes around 11pm and opens around 6am. Its loud clanging rumble no longer wakes me, but simply gives me a general gauge of how much longer I can sleep. I have a plan to stick a piece of cardboard in as it shuts to see what happens, but so far this plan hasn’t been executed.

Very close to my room are stairs (and elevator) which connect all the floors, and in about 10 seconds I can leave my room and arrive on the 4th floor in the dining room called Topaz Dining. This dining room usually serves buffet style meals in the morning and set meals for lunch and dinner. During the set meals, we must arrive within a 20 minute “seating window” to make things simpler for the cooks and wait staff who really work hard to provide excellent customer service. All the waitstaff can speak English and Japanese (at least the niceties) and their own languages. I have learned Good Morning and Thank You in Bulgarian, Thank You in Chinese and Filipino (though I already knew the Chinese version), and I try to use the correct words depending on who is serving our table.

On the 5th floor is GET Street, the name of the hallway which contains 10 classrooms where we teach our lessons. Basically there are 30 English classes a day, with each teacher teaching 2 classes. (Adriana teaches Spanish.) I am in GET Room 9 from 8am to 9:25am and then GET Room 4 from 9:30am to 10:55am. A computer in each room (new for this voyage!) allows us to use multimedia during our lessons: powerpoint, music, movies, etc. I also use it to take notes and define vocabulary words for the students and give them a printout after the classes. The rest of 5th floor is filled with passenger rooms. And the infirmary.

In addition to many rooms, on the sixth floor (but on the other end of the ship) is the GET Office where, last cruise, all the lesson planning was done. I can’t really imagine what it must have been like for 15 teachers all vying for time on two old PCs with a single printer and cranky copy machine. This voyage seems to be like a transition, as some things are still done in the GET Office, but most things are being done down on GET Street. Also on the 6th floor is Reception, next to which we usually dis/embark the ship. Reception is staffed 24 hours and basically works like a hotel reception desk.

On the 7th floor most of the daily Peace Boat activity takes place. Broadway is a large meeting room that spans the back of the ship. Lectures happen there during the day and performances at night. A theater is next up from Broadway where they play ping pong during the day and various movies at night. I haven’t played ping pong nor watched any movies there. After that are some storage rooms and then Peace Center, which seems to be staffed 24 hours, by diligent workers who produce the daily schedule in Japanese and English and the daily paper with ship news.

The schedule is a monstrosity in itself, with nearly every minute of every room filled. The schedule is quite dynamic; people come up with new activities they want to do and vie for time in various rooms. The English schedule is usually quite entertaining with misspellings and funny translations.

“Let’s 1970!” or “Let’s 21 years old!” or “Let’s learning Korean drum!” or “Sawing Circle” or “Bleak Dancing” “Frag Semaphore” (the last two being R-L mixups) “Scream out the name of the person you love”

Next on the ship is the Free Space, next to Hemingway Bar (a piano bar). Then there is Winjammer Lounge (variously spelled with or without a D) which is nearly as wide as the ship save for a hallway on each side. A small gameroom and meeting room are past Windjammer, and then several nice passenger rooms.

The 8th floor is outside: basically the deck around the perimeter of the ship, and sports deck (above Winjammer, which sometimes gives stomp-enhanced lectures) and then a small room called T-Club next to the small weight gym), then the front deck (where we are not allowed to jump because passengers may be sleeping below). The back of the ship on 8th floor is an always-buffet dining area called Yacht Club during the day and a Japanese style bar at night.

The 9th deck is near the center of the ship. It’s called the pool deck because …… there are two pools and a jacuzzi available when we’re in the middle of the ocean. The water is pulled straight up from the ocean, so it’s the same temperature as what the fish are experiencing.

Next to the pool deck is Sunshine Bar, an outdoor bar by the pool. This bar is not as popular as the others, but people often spend a little quiet time there.

Hello from Le Havre, France! This city of 100,000 features some museums and gardens, and old architecture that I can’t name, but reminds me of old paintings. I’ve written more detail about our Le Havre wanderings in my journal dated July 2nd.

I think the last time I wrote was in Egypt (Port Said) after we saw the three Great Pyramids and Sphinx in Cairo.

After that, we landed in Piraeus, Greece, which was a short train ride to Athens, where I walked around alone. I was pretty much not in the mood for chatting, though I can’t remember specifically why. It was probably related to issues regarding plans in Jamaica… but that is a different story.
In Athens, after visiting an old church (by ‘old’ I mean 2500 years, and by ‘church’ I mean rubble strewn remains of walls) where I was not allowed to take a picture of Francois sitting on the wall, I padded barefootedly around the Acropolis entrance and the Parthenon (I think) though I wasn’t allowed to enter either without shoes.

I can basically understand the reason (that I heard later via rumor): the modern Greek culture desires that the ancient greek ruins be treated with reverence and respect. No climbing, funny faces, bare feet, stuffed animals. These are 2000+ year old works of art. Not part of some large playground.

Instead of putting on shoes, I ate ice cream and wrote post cards next to a little kiosk where I had seen a rather large turtle trapped behind a fence designed to keep me out of the Acropolis (not, I imagine, designed to keep turtles in). I took a picture of him with Francois in the foreground. Had there been no other people around, I would have put Francois on the turtle, and then later may have regretted my decision had the turtle become frightened by my antics.

I felt quite better after my day alone in Athens, and after eating another ice cream.

Interesting things in Athens:

1) while sitting outside the train station, I saw two dogs running loose in the street, inadvertantly scaring pigeons and basically being happy dogs. They ran inside the train station, barked for a bit and ran back out and down the street.

2) the train stations don’t force people to buy tickets. Bypassing the gates is a trivial matter; I don’t know if there is some hidden enforcement that I didn’t see.

3) while walking back to the boat, I saw some men with an extremely efficient way of towing illegally parked cars. They simply remove the license plates and put a ticket on the windshield. Granted, this can’t really be called towing, but it achieves the same purpose. The car owner must proceed immediately to the license plate retrieval location and pay a fine to get the plates back.

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In Italy, we landed on Sciliy in Catania. From there, I walked around with Niveen, a Palestinian student who has been onboard with Elait, an Israeli student since Jordan. ((They’ve been telling us the horrors of the Israeli occupation in Palestine: 8 meter wall being built through villages; random checkpoints within the city with rules that change daily, forcing people to lose hours of time every day; propoganda from the Israeli government saying “We need the wall for security against these attacks,” when the truth is the attacks are due to the wall and the occupation itself.))

After wandering around the Catania fish market, ogling the huge variety of fish, eating gelati and pizza and various fruits, we convened with Audrey, Allison, Natalie, et. al. near an outdoor clothing market and chowed fresh large red and green peppers stuffed with cheese and basil and olives. Super thanks to Audrey for expanding my brain to a new way of eating a cheap, simple, healthy, delicious meal!

Our group took a train to Taormina, which had been accurately described as a beautiful spot to visit. The view from the top of the hill can be augmented with pay-binoculars for a close up view of the crystal waters and surrounding hills facing the sea.

We had to hurry back, so we took a taxi. But that put us far enough ahead of schedule that we were able to stop by the beach (I’ll recognize the name if you say it) for about 10 minutes. The water looked clear enough to drink (though I assure you it’s too salty to drink much) and was too cold for me to do more than wade.

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In Barcelona, we arrived on a Sunday, which also happened to be a national holiday. Most of the shops were closed, but La Rambla and the main tourist places were still active. On La Rambla, a street of kiosks and street performers, I was impressed by the ability of a man dressed like the devil: he could leap out of his box and stand on top of it for a photo, then collapse as if falling back into his box. I was unimpressed, however, with his manners. After seeing a couple of people come up to him for pictures, I went up and he was like, “go away” and then he yelled at all the onlookers “go away! move on!”… it was really strange, and I can’t imagine it’s part of his act. I didn’t give him any money.

Niveen and I saw the Sagrada Familia (sp) and cliimbed its 340+ steps to peer over the edges of its spiraling towers and see the continuing construction. The church is really beautiful in its ugliness, and I must give props to the original architect for his vision. I enjoyed running down the tight spiral steps, because it could definitely be described as dangerous, and it made me dizzy. There is no handrail in the center: just a vertical column of a hole about a foot wide.

Niveen and I visited Park Guell, another fair climb to the top of its hill, though escalators are available. (I didn’t use them.) From the park, the view of the city featured Sagrada Familia nestled within the smaller buildings, all surrounded by mountains in the distance.

We chatted about life, specifically her plans for the future and my lack of plans for the future.

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In Le Havre, France, I am sitting now on the top deck of our ship on Sunshine Bar. This place will come alive again in about 7 hours, when people crowd the sides of the boat for the departure ceremony. Next stop: Norway!